Aaron Rodgers apparently refused to return any phone calls from the Packers general manager this offseason

At some point this offseason, the Packers made the decision to move on from Aaron Rodgers and one reason that happened is apparently because he wouldn’t return their calls. 

When Rodgers left town following the conclusion of the 2022 season, both sides seemed open to the idea of the quarterback possibly returning in 2023. Before that could happen though, Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst wanted to get Rodgers on the phone to talk about the future of the team. However, those conversations never happened because Rodgers was apparently ducking every phone call he got from the Packers. 

“You’d love to have those conversations about where our team’s going and how he might fit into that,” Gutekunst said Monday, via ESPN.com. “We were unable to have those, so it is what it is.”

According to Gutekunst, the Packers tried to reach out to Rodgers on multiple occasions. 

“A lot of attempts and went through that, but at the same time, again, we’re always looking out for what’s best for the Green Bay Packers,” Gutekunst said, via NFL.com. “As time went on, we kind of had to move.”

With Rodgers ghosting him, Gutekunst eventually made the decision that it was time to move on from the four-time NFL MVP. 

“Our inability to reach him or for him to respond in any way,” Gutekunst said, via ESPN.com. “I think at that point, I had to do my job and kind of reach out [to other teams] and understand that a trade could be possible and see who was interested.”

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Rodgers and the Packers actually did have some amicable talks in the days after the the team’s regular-season finale, but as Gutekunst has already noted, they never talked after that because Rodgers wouldn’t pick up his phone. 

“I was really looking forward to the conversations with Aaron to see how he fit into that,” Gutekunst said. “Those never transpired. So there came a time where we had to make some decisions, so we went through his representatives to try to talk to him [about] where were we going with our team. At that point, they informed us that he would like to be traded to the Jets.”

The Packers’ version of events doesn’t exactly line up with Rodgers’ version, which he shared during a March 15 appearance on The Pat McAfee Show. One thing the two sides do agree on though is that things were cordial at the end of the season. 

“Everything that I was told in the week that I was in Green Bay was: ‘Take as long as you want and we want you to retire a Packer. If you want to come back and play, obviously the door is wide open,'” Rodgers said, via the AP. “That was the information I was going on.”

According to Rodgers, the team decided to move on — without telling him — while he was on his four-day darkness retreat, which ended on Feb. 23. 

“They want to move on,” Rodgers told McAfee. “They don’t want me to come back and that’s fine.”

Of course, one key detail Rodgers failed to mention is that he might have played a big role in why Green Bay didn’t want him back. If Rodgers was avoiding contact with the team, then he put the final nail in his own coffin when it comes to his career with the Packers. 

At some point, Rodgers will definitely be asked about these comments and it will definitely be interesting to hear what he has to say.